


Jump.

by randomramblesff



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Scrunch is real, if he had not worn that shirt, this is all thanks to joel mchale playing a personal trainer on difficult people, university of science and technology with h a n d s, we would not have 13k words to read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8049586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomramblesff/pseuds/randomramblesff
Summary: According to the piece of paper she signs off, her trainer’s called Jeff Winger and he’s been a professional trainer for at least a good few years, and oddly has a background in law too, but it doesn’t put her off because she’d rather have someone intellectual and physically motivating, than just someone who knows how to lift weights......or the AU where Jeff is a personal trainer and Annie is in need of one.





	1. Go ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is literally only a thing because of Joel McHale's role in Difficult People as the (cannibal) personal trainer, Felix. I just liked the idea of J/A being in a world where they were immediately physical with each other. Thanks to my main pigeon pal 'Puff' for helping me along with this one! You da' best. Hope you like it...

She needs a trainer because although she’s always seen herself working in a forensics lab rather out on the field, there’s something exhilarating about being able to take that path if she wanted to, just by having enough skill and agility under her belt with a little help. She’s trained in self-defence up to a level in which she could actually defend herself, but she lacks the strength and stamina that would really be needed for a position like it, so she scours the web and realises that the fancy gym nearby has a select number of personal trainers at a reasonable price per month, so she takes one of her days off to go and take a visit, signing herself up once she figures out who would be most suitable.

According to the piece of paper she signs off, her trainer’s called Jeff Winger and he’s been a professional trainer for at least a good few years, and oddly has a background in law too, but it doesn’t put her off because she’d rather have someone intellectual _and_ physically motivating, than just someone who knows how to lift weights. They’re going to be spending a couple of hours a week together, so they may as well have something to talk about, right?

She would have preferred a female trainer, just because she knows too many stories from her friend Britta, of guys who try to make advances in similar scenarios, but seeing as the gym has a five-star rating on Yelp and all of the employees have decent checks and reviews, she lets it slide and tells herself that she can always pull out because this is only a personal decision; she’s not obliged to start training. She’s still working in the lab and the most exercise she has to do is move boxes from one end of the hall to another, at most.

She decides to put a sports gear haul on hold until she knows she’s really committed, but she still prepares herself the night before their first early morning session by laying out her clothes on the couch, and by putting her sneakers by the door ready to go. She picks out an old t-shirt to throw over an equally (perhaps even older) sports bra that’s got a small hole under the arm and a pair of ordinary leggings which hopefully won’t cling too much if she starts to get a sweat on.

At eight thirty on the dot, she’s out the door with her white and purple unbranded sneakers, a bottle of water under her arm and a high ponytail scraping back her hair. She walks the few blocks to the gym, rocking back and forth on her heels outside where she was supposedly supposed to meet the mysterious Jeff Winger for the first time, and waits. Their session starts at nine o’clock, so she doesn’t mind waiting the ten minutes that separate her between being early and on time, but when her phone glares back up at her with 9:15am, she pouts and walks into the foyer, and starts rocking back and forth in there instead.

At 9:20, she’s about ready to give up, but then a six-foot-something guy walks past and pushes out the glass doors, throwing up his hands and cursing under his breath as he checks outside to see nobody is there. She isn’t totally sure it’s him because there’s been plenty of people walking in and out of the building, but he has the right sort of build for a trainer, and his clothes are covered in high-end sports brand logos, so she presumes he can’t just be anyone.

He catches her eye and looks her up and down unapologetically, nodding his head when he presumes something similar.

“Let me guess, I’m meant to be with you?” He squints an eye and throws a finger in her direction, his other hand resting on his thigh as he stands across the entrance.

“Jeff… Winger?”

“That’s me.”

“Then we’re both in the right place. My session was supposed to start at nine, though…”

He nods and closes the gap partly, licking his lips and swinging his hands into his loose fitting running shorts.

“Yeah I know.”

“It’s… almost half past.”

“Yeah… because everyone at this gym is late.”

“I was here ten minutes early… so…”

He blows out a breath and shakes his head as if it’s enough of an apology, before holding out his hand for her to shake it.

“Again, Jeff Winger.”

She shakes it gently, noticing how smooth his skin is for somebody who presumably spends most of his time lifting heavily gripped pieces of heavily weighted metal.

“Annie… Edison.”

“Right, so training. What are we working towards?”

She’s caught off guard by how unorganised he seems to be, but the way he stands and holds himself and sort of furrows his brow to signal he’s focused intently, suggests that maybe he just has it all up in his mind rather down on paper like she tends to rely on.

“Oh well… I kind of just want to work on my stamina and strength a little bit. I guess it’s just an overall goal to better myself because I’m thinking about my career options and becoming an agent is kind of on the list so…”

“An agent? Like a real estate agent or… are we talking 007?”

She laughs breathily as he grins down at her, crossing his arms to emphasise their size and how he’s probably crossed off every goal under the sun to achieve them.

“The real dream would be the FBI but I don’t think that’s very realistic anymore… it’s okay.” She shakes her head shyly and flicks up her brows waiting for a response.

“Strength and stamina, as well as focus and dedication, are kind of my forte so I’d like to say you’re in safe hands. I say we start with the basics, even using boxing exercises can be helpful. You got any experience?”

She smiles smugly and mirrors his crossed arm position like it’s nothing.

“I dabbled in self-defence.”

“Oh yeah? Well, you do you want to come show me?”

He’s already walking towards the stairs before she has time to respond, so she follows and rolls her eyes at the squeaking the rubber soles of her sneakers make as they brush on the plastic edging of each step, compared to the silent pitter patter that is coming from him up ahead. For someone who is obviously over twice her size, she’s surprised it’s not the other way around.

She carries on following him as he blazes through the hallways like he owns the place (which she’s pretty sure he doesn’t because why would the owner of a gym be late to a client’s session?), before he slows and pushes a couple of numbers into a keypad of a door that opens up into a silent room big enough to hold a small concert of some kind.

There’s a ballet bar on the wall which is lined with mirrors; there’s a small almost pop-up like boxing ring at the far end, as well as some old tyres, some heavy duty ropes and a selection of weights and one or two slightly bigger pieces of equipment she’s only really seen in the background of movies or in episodes of TV.

Jeff fiddles with a switch on the wall before walking backwards, his arms stretched outwards.

“This room is your oyster. We’ll mainly stay in here unless we need to go outside, you want to swim or use a treadmill… which I usually tend to avoid unless I need distracting or to really push myself ebecause running outside is way more challenging seeing as you have to battle against the elements. Anyway, come here, show me what you got. Pads, gloves, what kind of thing are used to?”

Speaking of elements, he’s definitely in his, she thinks as she takes everything in and mulls over her options.

“I’ve mainly done karate… so…”

“Alright, still, show me what you’ve got.” He stands in the middle of the room and crooks his neck a little from side to side.

“Aren’t we meant to warm up… or do stretches…”

He snorts and pulls out his wicked grin once again, his eyes creasing as he does.

“Who’s the trainer here, me or you? Because I’m pretty sure you’re the one paying me. And a warm up can be whatever I want it to be, and in the case, I want it to be _you_ showing me what you already know.”

She takes a steadying breath and wipes her hands across her legging covered thighs before reaching behind her ears to tug on her hair slightly, swallowing and making every attempt to control herself.

“So where do I start… just…?”

“Go ahead. Throw whatever you have at me.”

“Umm…”

She lines herself up and suddenly feels extremely small within his shadow. She can see he’s older than she thought he might have been closer up, and how he grits his teeth constantly, his jaw twitching every few seconds. She cringes as she uses the most basic hit she knows, noticing how he barely moves to dodge it.

It takes her a couple of moments but then he’s moving more and he actually ducks at one point because her leg flies up higher than he was probably expecting, and she can feel the energy pulsing through her veins and it all just feels natural. It comes back to her as easy as pie, and when she darts around on the spot to do a swift motion with her arm, she has to blink to realise that he’s moved to the corner of the room to rummage through a bag. She coughs and straightens out her hair again, trying her best not to react to the grin that’s obviously permanently fixed to his face.

He pulls out a thin rope and circles it around his hand before clambering up over the boxing ring, barely grunting or making a noise as he flips himself over and starts unravelling the rope from one side of the box to the other.

“Am I meant to be doing anything or…?”

“Climb up here.”

She nods and follows his command, evaluating the height of the surrounding rope before deciding to just duck and crawl through them instead of making a fool out of herself and her incapability of climbing over it with short legs.

“You’ve got to go in and out, zigzagging between the rope I’ve just put across, punching the air each side, with a fist, none of this karate hand business, okay? Watch me and then just keep doing it until I tell you to stop.”

She nods again because it’s all she can really think to do. He starts to dodge in and out of the rope like he’d explained, so she stands still and watches on, jolting from side to side to keep up with his pattern. His lips are pursed and he’s going at it with speed and that focus he’d mentioned earlier, and she can’t help but think he’s undeniably attractive with a pointed nose and a perfect body which she can only catch a few glimpses of in his shirt, but she doesn’t need to see the full picture to know there’s probably a masterpiece underneath.

He whistles to get her attention, throwing a thumb towards the rope before moving out of the way so she can replace him. He stands on the edge of the ring and leans back, his shoulders exposed in his short-sleeved tank top which is embroidered with a white tick across the left side of his chest. He’s tempted to mention that her shoes are rubbing far too much on the ring floor for his liking, but he can tell she’s started to get into a rhythm by the way she closes her eyes every time she ducks down.

“You’re a quick learner.” He calls out as she turns back the other way. She doesn’t stop, but she breathes out a response the next time she jolts her head out to the side with a punch to the air.

“I like to learn.”

“That’s good to know. Did you go to college?”

She punches again, a little harder than before.

“Yeah… Greendale,” she breaks up her response with another hit, “Community College.”

“Ahh, I have a friend who works there. Would you know him?”

“Maybe.”

“Duncan… Ian… Professor… he’s British?”

She stops then, straightening herself up and wiping her forehead with the back of her hand to get rid of the dampness that hard started to form.

“I actually do. He taught me a lesson or two… poorly I’ll add; no offence.”

“None taken. He’s drunk most of the time so I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah. Do you mind if I have some water?” She wipes at her forehead again before dropping her chin towards the floor beneath the ring, where she’d left her crinkled bottle and phone.

“Sure.” He sighs and carries on leaning against the edge of the ring, looking up at the ceiling before turning to follow her.

“So… stamina, huh? How long do you reckon you lasted doing that?”

She’s beneath him, crouching down to her belongings so she can calm and rehydrate herself.

“Ten… minutes?”

He clasps his fingers around the ropes and tugs, letting them ping back into shape in front of him.

“Three. That was three minutes.”

She drops her bottle into her lap and rolls her eyes, biting her lip all at the same time.

“You’re joking right?”

“I don’t lie.” He shakes his head and crosses his feet at his ankles as he stands taller, waiting patiently for her to finish sipping at her water.

“How come you aren’t a lawyer anymore?”

His eyes widen before closing back down to a questioning squint as he tilts his head and grits his teeth. He lifts a hand to run it through the scruff that’s at home on his jaw, before dropping it back down to the rope again.

“Excuse me?”

“It said on your information page that you have a background in law, and seeing as I kind of want to get to know the person who’s going to be helping me out over the next few weeks or months or however long this might be… well, how come it’s a background? It’s a pretty drastic change in career.”

“And I don’t lie… you’re clever.” He raises an eyebrow and smirks, licking his lips subconsciously as she tilts her head up at him and leans back on the palms of her hands.

“I don’t lie, but I also don’t give out personal information to people I’ve only known for less than half an hour.”

“So I have to earn the honesty?”

“Exactly.”

He turns around and carries on smirking at the ground as he unties the rope across the ring, chucking it back into the bag it came from after he’s climbed back off the podium. As he has his back turned, he takes the opportunity to make a comment about her choice of clothing.

“By the way, you might want to invest in some new sneakers,” he turns and she instantly knows he’s trying to get back at her for her previous question, “and shredding that t-shirt might help because I could tell it was slowing you down a little. You’re actually pretty quick on your tiny little feet.” He nudges his toe against her own as she pushes off the floor and stands up in front of him.

Her breathing is steady but he can’t help but notice her shoulders and chest raise and lower as she gazes up at him, all air of shyness and embarrassment now gone. He’s her trainer, and she is his trainee.

“As you wish.” She sighs, her fingers fumbling at the hem of her shirt; her eyes unmoving from his own which are darting all over the place. She pulls upwards and the bare creamy white skin of her stomach is visible for him to see, and damn, he’s seen dozens of six-packs and better-toned bodies than hers, but there’s something about how her hips roll and how everything smooths out that has him incessantly staring until his eyes flick upwards to a very specific and exposed area, cupped and covered by a small black bra that contrasts so sharply against her skin he wants to pull it straight off and cover her with something softer; maybe a tanned shape in the form of muscle and sculpting.

Stamina is still on his mind, so when she’s finally ready with her t-shirt now on the floor, he shakes himself out of it and glances to a box step in the corner of his eye.

“Have you ever done step-ups?”

* * *

 

By their fourth session, they already have a bit of a pattern going. He sets up some sort of warm-up that she does for as long as she can, and then they go over different elements of each, with breaks in-between for either water or a completely different activity to the one they’re already doing. She actually enjoys the boxing based exercises, because it’s not that far off karate, and that’s something she’s capable of doing, but he’s already started to pick up on that, so the ropes and the zig-zagging has become less and less of an option.

Plus, he gets kind of bored just standing around and watching on the sidelines, so he’s started implementing routines that can involve the both of them, like letting her have at it by pounding at the pads on his hands or making her do crunches with him standing on the tips of her toes – adding yet another reason why she needs to get new sneakers; her old ones are way too flimsy for his weight.

They haven’t really learnt that much more about each other either, which Annie presumes is because he’s either a guarded person in general or he doesn’t really have time to make small talk seeing as she’s not the only person he has to worry about.

There’s something else there, though, a sort of expectancy to tease one and other because they know how easily they could do it when they first met.

“Come on reach me, or are you too short?” He grins as she pouts and pulls up, stretching her hands out to his fingertips, just about brushing them for it to count as a successful attempt. She’s half way to doing it again when he leans back by a few centimetres.

“You… err… please, just…” She grits through it, stretching even further than she’s used to before trying to wiggle free her foot so she can place it between his legs with force. He sniggers and lets her free, sliding her bottle of water along the ground, as well as her t-shirt which she’s started to use as more of a towel than anything else.

“Just so you know, you did eight of them which I’m very impressed by.”

“Eight? Really? You’re impressed by _eight?_ ”

“I’m impressed by eight from _you._ There’s somebody who I train who can do forty-two with no stops whatsoever, and it doesn’t impress me anymore because I know he can do it… but you did six last time. That’s two more than usual.”

“Yay me.” She sighs, rolling her eyes to the ground. From what he’s learnt about her, she’s pretty successful in most areas of her life (well, other than the parts he doesn’t know about like her cooking abilities or what she’s like in bed) but there’s something about her when she seems defeated that lets him in on that maybe sport is the only real thing she fails at.

“It’s fine you know. It’s called training for a reason. It takes time and practice, skill and p-.”

“Patience, I know.”

“Then why do you sound like you want to give up?”

“Because I could probably get to ten if you didn’t hold me back.”

“I’m having fun with it, and I’m giving you a challenge. This job gets pretty boring after a while, so when somebody new comes in, I like to use them to my advantage.”

She’s trying her best to look uninterested, but her lips are parted and her brow is twitching upwards so he knows she’s taking it all in. He rolls his own eyes and drops his hand out down in front of her.

“Come one. Let’s get up.”

She looks up at his hand but her eyes trace up his arm and all the way to his own eyes, and both of their smiles soften. He nods for her to grab on, so she does, and once again that thought about his hands being softer than you would expect is in her mind. It happens a lot, so she’s really starting to think they should stop holding hands… but right now, he’s still holding on; his long thick fingers are curled around her own as he lets her breathe and stand on her feet.

“I quit being a lawyer because I lied. I faked my degree, I cheated on the LSATs and I got caught out after seven years of working my way up. So I quit, and I took the easy way out after realising I couldn’t make it on my own. People throw stuff at you so that they can benefit themselves, but that doesn’t mean you should quit like I did.”

He’s caught her full attention now because her eyes are wide and her ears have pulled themselves back slightly, like a cat hearing something in the distant; she’s alert, he’s noticed.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He’s brushing the inside of her palm with his thumb, and it sends a shiver up her arm which she hopes he didn’t notice.

“Because you asked.”

He lets go then, turning on his heels to walk over to the battle ropes on the floor.

“You think you can do these today?” He points at them and crosses his arms when she nods and walks over.

“Because you asked.” She mimics, making him poke his tongue into the side of his cheek. He clicks the timer on his watch, letting it play out a small beep before she can begin. He scratches at his beard and wonders around the room a bit, humming an unrecognisable tune before standing and watching her in the mirror.

She’s crouched over with her legs parted, waving up and down the ropes rhythmically. She kind of looks ridiculous because the ropes are comically huge in comparison to her petite frame, so he stifles a laugh and scuffs at his shoe to distract himself.

It’s been five minutes so he decides to give her a breather, but only a for a moment so she doesn’t get a chance to fill herself up with liquid and make the next exercise uncomfortable to complete.

“Strength involves every part of your body, and a lot of it is to do with balance.” He huffs out, lowering himself to the ground on a small mat which he’s had time to lay out. “So… come over here, and climb aboard.”

She grits her teeth and glares at him, reluctantly standing up and repositioning herself beside him. He lays back and his running vest clings to his abs, the perfectly smooth outline teasing against the fabric as he holds out his hands in the air and kicks his feet up.

“I can take your weight so there’s no need to take your time. Just put your hands here, and then I’ll raise you up so you’re balancing on my feet.”

She composes herself before re-joining their hands together, finding herself impressed by how he doesn’t even quiver as she props herself up. His feet skim across her thighs and she’s almost there, but because he’s still finding his literal footing, she dips forward and their foreheads collide, meaning their nose-to-nose, hand-to-hand and foot to… her stomach, eventually.

His arms are still unmoving, other than the motion it takes him to push her up over himself. He straightens them out as well as his feet and she _really_ wishes she was doing this with someone shorter because his legs are incredibly long and somehow, even though she’s never been afraid of heights and the floor would only leave her with a bruise, she has to gulp to suppress the nerves.

“I’m going to let go, and you’re going to have to hold yourself there.”

“What?! No, I can’t, I’ll fa-.”

“Annie.”

He cuts her off mid squeak, her body moving about making his elbows bow just a tad.

“I’m not going to let you fall, and if you do end up toppling forward, _I’m_ the one who’s going to get hurt.”

“I’ll topple forward and chip a tooth on the ground.”

“You’ll topple forward and your boobs will be in my face, and I’ll get a foot to the groin.”

Her expression changes into an unimpressed tight smile, so he flashes his teeth and laughs, but she drops down slightly so he has to start again in rebalancing her.

“Okay but seriously, I’m… going… to… let… go… now…” He words it out slowly, making her glare again, but he can feel her breathe out against his toes (which he might add are basically digging into the underside of her aforementioned boobs) and stretch out a little, so he knows she’s ready.

“Okay, ready?” She nods and his hands drop gradually, leaving her balancing on a platform of Jeff.

“Right, now… you’ve got to stretch out. Put your hands out in front of you, point your toes and just stay like that. I’ll have my hands here but don’t use them unless you really think you’re going to fall, okay?” She nods against and her chest pushes out against him as she carefully points her fingers above his head. Her toes curl and he smiles at how proud she looks when she realises she’s completely still and steady.

“And now, we just sit and wait.” He slides his hands underneath his head so his elbows are sticking out, his eyes closing so he can smile like a cat in a beam of sunlight.

She takes the time to examine his face more closely, getting a better look at the scar on his lip and wonders how it got there, and the mole above his left eyebrow, and the grey hairs which are starting to show amongst the dark brown across his cheeks and jawline. The rest of his hair is perfectly styled with a few shorter spiky pieces tickling his temples.

He looks genuinely peaceful and she wonders how many clients he actually has. There was a good choice of seven personal trainers, so there must be an even split. She bites her lip as she starts to think about who the other people might be… the guy who can do forty-two pull ups barely even comes to mind until she thinks about who he’s mentioned, which is basically no one.

He must feel her eyes tracing along his collarbone, or maybe he just realises it’s been long enough so he can let her down, but he opens his own and his expression returns to its sly smirk once again.

“You’re tensing.” He points out, flicking a finger to the gap between his two feet. She sighs softly and looks down as far as she can to wear his legs are pointing upwards.

“Are you going to put me down?”

He tilts his head and drops his eyes to the deep gap inside of her sports bra, running his eyes down over the curve of her body.

“Nah, I’m just enjoying the view.”

“What was that about a foot to the groin?” She asks, clasping her fingers around his outstretched hands so he can finally lower her.

They’re nose-to-nose again and they can feel each other’s breath against their skin, so when he feels himself slowly moving in, he whispers something into her ear about ‘liking it really’, and flips her over so his arm is across her shoulders and her knees are trapped between his own.

“And now you have to try and wriggle free, you think you can do that?” His voice is low and husky, almost like it’s taken more out of him to flip them over than it has of her when he surprised her with such a move.

“I don’t think I can,” She says with faux dismay in her voice, before using the strength she’s started to build up to press her knee into his chest, pushing her head forward and knocking him to his side, so that she’s now the one on top, “I _know_ I can.”

“You’ve got moves. How come I haven’t seen those before?”

“I guess you just haven’t given me the opportunity to try.”

That’s when she realises that his shirt has raised up to his shoulder so basically everything is on show, and her hands are balancing against the V of his hips. She guesses that’s why most guys want a great body; so they can have a direct arrow to where their most important assets are tucked away. _His_ arrow is dusted with a trail of hair which stops circling once it reaches his navel, and her hands have already started to move up and above it where more hair is dusted.

He doesn’t seem to be interested in stopping her, but when her fingers brush up against his chest, his whole body tenses and his abs become more prominent. She trails them back down and gets a small thrill from how dark his eyes look when she catches them to ask a question.

“Do you think I could get abs?”

“Sure… I don’t know why you’d want them, though.” He gasps for air when she starts circling her fingers, reaching around the side of his ribs and back in again.

“Why would I _not?_ ”

“Erm, because you have a perfect figure already.”

“You think I have a perfect figure?” She smiles shyly, pausing on her invisible sketch across his body.

“Sure, but I’m pretty sure you’re thinking the same thing about me right now.”

“Is that something you tell all your clients?” She’s back to drawing, but this time she scrapes a nail across his nipple and his brain short circuits for a moment; he really needs her to move – plus, he’s pretty sure this is some sort of sexual assault seeing as she never asked his permission, but he’s hardly about to complain.

“I’m pretty sure our session is over.”

He kicks himself for closing his eyes as she swoops her hands lower, brushing the waistband of his shorts. She twists her lips together before standing, her feet either side of his legs. She turns and picks up her stuff, but she doesn’t have her back to him long enough, so she catches him brushing a hand down his face and the fabric tightening between his legs.

He closes his eyes and flips himself over so he can rest his chin on his arms.

“Was that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” She kicks the sole of his shoe.

Before the door of the room swings shut, he calls out behind her.

“I guess you’d know, Special Agent.”

 


	2. We'll just... see.

She senses things have changed during the next couple of sessions because he’s stood back from teasing her so much and if he ever needs to balance her on top of him, he doesn’t give her anything more than clear cut instructions of what she should do.

He lets a few more personal things slip though, like how he’s actually pretty close friends with the two lifeguards who work shifts for the gym’s indoor swimming pool and how the main reason he knows how to tie secure knots (in the ropes and equipment he sets out) is because he used to have a dog when he was a kid, and he got used to tying it up on trees and lamp posts so he could go to the grocery store without getting kicked out, and without losing a dog of course.

There’s not really anything she can personally add on because she doesn’t know any lifeguards and she has yet to visit the pool, and knots have never been her forte, and she’s never had a dog, but she smiles and appreciates the little details he’s feeding her about his life.

Even though she can’t relate, she tries her best to level it out with her own stories; that time she accidentally high-kicked her friend in the face because she startled her, and a small snippet about the paintball wars of Greendale. He’d heard of the City College one actually, mainly because Duncan had told him he’d experienced ‘a war whilst under the influence’.

“I actually got Coldplay tickets out of it… they weren’t even part of the prize.” She huffs out as she finishes some push-ups beside him.

“Oh yeah, how did you manage that?” He asks lying down, before realising how close his face is to hers, propping himself up with his arms crossed over his knees.

“There was this guy who was paid to participate… fairly attractive… he hit on me and said he had a spare ticket. And so I went.”

“I feel like there should be another ‘ _and’_ on the end of that sentence.” He tilts his head and smirks, flicking a piece of fluff off of his arm.

“What do you mean by that…?” Annie’s voice trails off questioningly, her eyes squinting as she awaits an answer.

“ _And_ then we had sex; _And_ then we dated; _And_ then we… did some weird paintball themed kinky role play scenario.”

“Ew.” She groans as she stands, partly in disgust and partly due to exhaustion.

“So, did you or didn’t you?”

“Does it matter if I did? That’s a pretty personal question you’re asking me.” She pops the cap of her water bottle off and glugs down as much as she can fill herself up with.

“I’m not going to judge you. I once had a three-way in a hot air balloon.”

She splutters over her water and has to discreetly wipe away the dribble off her chin with the back of her hand.

“I didn’t need to know that.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning his smile upside down into a goofy turned-down line as he does so.

“Feel free to level things out.”

“I’m good.”

He nods and watches as she collects her belongings, stretching herself out a little as she goes. She inhales and lets out a mutter which he just about catches onto.

“And sooo was he.”

He sniggers and then they’re both laughing and his eyes are wide and bright and that turned down shrugging smile has changed into a wide, dimple deepening grin.

He’s started to follow her back down to the foyer recently too, which is what he does once she’s finished warming herself down. She fumbles around with the drawstring bag she’s started to bring with her and smiles up at him once she’s finally ready to leave.

“You did good today by the way. I’m proud of you.” He nods forward, his voice and tone and his overall stature coming across as completely sincere.

“I’m not sure what for, but okay.”

He holds out his hand for some sort of sloppy high five, but then they just end up gripping each other’s fingertips and Jeff’s thumb brushes gently across her knuckle.

There’s a lump in his chest and it’s a little hard to swallow because he can’t remember the last time he felt such a sensation. He doesn’t want to think too much about it or start making his mind exaggerate whatever it is he’s feeling, so he drops his hand first and looks away to lick his lips.

“Bye, Jeff.”

He breathes out slowly as she walks away until he remembers what he’d been meaning to tell her all morning.

“Oh wait, erm, Annie?”

She turns on her heels just before the glass doors, humming in acknowledgement and dodging out of the way of someone making a hurried exit.

“I can’t do your session next week. It’s a personal thing.”

“Oh… is that okay? Will it matter if I miss a week? I don’t want to mess up the… routine, or pattern or whatever.” He pouts downwards in amusement, realising she’s definitely the paranoid-about-everything kind of person.

“It will be fine. It’s not like you’re training for a marathon.”

“Okay… so… the week after?”

“Sure. You can come in and still use everything, though.”

“Yeah, okay… thanks.”

“No problem.”

She isn’t quite sure why she asks it, but she does with ease.

“Is it a personal thing or a personal… person?”

“A personal _person?_ Yeah, kind of, I guess.”

“Oh… well, enjoy doing whatever you’re doing.”

“I’m visiting my mom, if you _really_ must know.”

She parts her lips before realising he wasn’t offended, he’s just back to teasing her, it seems.

“Well, still, enjoy.”

“You too, short stuff.”

She rolls her eyes and sticks out her tongue playfully, before finally beginning her walk back home. He hates that he flashes his tongue out to her too.

* * *

 

When Saturday comes around, Annie finds herself twiddling her thumbs; the day in which her trainer, Jeff, is visiting his mom. She guesses it’s just boredom, but she finds herself trying to imagine who Miss/Ms Winger must be (she presumes she takes one of those titles because he has yet to mention a ‘dad’). She imagines her as fairly tall with the same mousey brown shade hair as her son, and perhaps the same turned up nose and crinkles around her eyes.

 _“Eat up Jeff, you don’t want to get too slim.”_ She whispers into her breakfast spoon, changing her voice to a slightly lower, moaning tone for Jeff.

_“Mom, it’s fine, I work out every day. I treat my body like a temple.”_

She attempts to do some work to distract herself, but she has to have one foot moving at all times otherwise, she starts getting annoyed with herself that she’s not up and exercising like every other Saturday morning she’s experienced over the past month.

She texts Britta to see if she’s free for lunch but apparently she’s gone out of state for the weekend and forgot to tell anyone, which Annie suspects is because she was high when she decided to get up and go.

She contemplates going to the gym anyway, just to use the equipment like Jeff said she could, but there’s something about going alone that makes it feel like she’s betraying him or going off without him behind his back – which is completely ridiculous because it’s his job to train her once a week, not keep track of literally every physical activity she gets involved with.

Specifically, not her sex life which he already knows more about than most people, which really isn’t a lot because there isn’t much to it anyway. There was Vaughn for six months, then there was that dabble with ‘The Black Rider’ (she’s still not sure what his real name was, but she expects that’s why the sex _was_ so good; the mystery) and those two small slip-ups of one night stands that she regrets and never wants to do again.

Thinking about it just makes her think about _his_ sex life, and hot air balloons and how that is even possible because surely you need to have a trained professional on board at all times? Unless it was on ground… but then it’s more of just a three-way in a basket that’s probably fairly uncomfortable to move around in.

She wonders if he’d ever contemplate or ever _has_ slept with one of his clients, or just a gym member in general. She wouldn’t be surprised if he has or if he one day _will_ because he has that air of confidence that shows he knows exactly what he’s doing and knows exactly how to handle a situation like it. Not that it would be much of a situation… it would just be two people who know each other having some fun… it’s not like it would sabotage his _personal training_ career.

Or his now, allegedly, long gone lawyer career, either.

She’s about to start making dinner when her phone chimes. She thinks perhaps it will be Britta asking for an emergency rescue from wherever she’s ended up, but an unknown number glares back at her and she’s left slightly confused.

A moment later, as she opens up the fridge to see what she has to eat, it chimes and vibrates again, this time with a message rather than a missed call.

UNKNOWN: Hey it’s Jeff ur trainer. I have time 4 an evening run if u want 2. Don’t want to mess up ur routine or pattern or whatever

She finally realises that all of the thinking about him had been because she’d been waiting for him to change his plans. Okay, so it was a total surprise that he actually _had_ messaged her (in fact, now she thinks about it – how did he get her number in the first place?) but there’s something about it that was so _expected._

She types back.

ANNIE: How did you get my number? Secondly, are you sure? Does this count as a session I have to pay for? Because technically we won’t be using any equipment or the actual gym itself, if it’s an outdoor evening run you’re talking about?

He types back within seconds, which doesn’t surprise her because if she’s ever doing a fully focused one-person exercise when they train, he usually stands back and taps away at his screen.

JEFF: Free of charge IOU a session another time. Got ur # from reception. So r u coming?

ANNIE: Sure. Where shall I meet you?

JEFF: Outside gym in 10 mins

She meets him dead on time, and for once he’s not a second late.

He doesn’t really say much, he just starts running and expects her to follow. She catches up and soon they are in perfect sync, with every kind of motion. He crosses them over a street and the surroundings become a little clearer as trees appear and an open grass area comes into view. He spits out and circles his hand in the air a couple of times so she knows what he’s planning on doing.

They do a few laps of the track around the park before darting inwards towards some monkey bars and other not-technically-for-fitness set-ups. He genuinely hasn’t said a word to her, but she doesn’t know what he’s like when he runs, so maybe this is normal.

“You feel like you can do some pull-ups?” He finally speaks up, pointing to one of the highest bars in front of them.

“Okay.”

“You need help?” She attempts to jump up and grab on, but he’s not having it, so he wraps his hands around her waist from behind and takes her weight so she can start lifting herself up more comfortably. She’s wearing a t-shirt because it’s fairly cool outside, but she can feel the warmth of his fingertips so clearly, it’s as if someone is putting a burning lightbulb to her skin.

Once she’s comfortable dangling, he stands back and watches her strain a little. He can see where she’s going wrong; pulling from the wrong places and not crossing her legs over to make things easier, so he guides his hands around her thighs and watches her attempt it again.

She almost has her chin over the bar and he starts cheering her on rather endearingly, but she only manages one before dropping right back down to the ground with a thud.

“Yeah we might have to work a little more on your upper arm strength before we do that again.”

“Or my _whole body_ strength.” He laughs and helps her to her feet, letting her wobble over to the bench nearby.

They sit side by side, but he’s leaning forward so there’s a bit of an awkward split between them. She watches the side of his face as he grits his teeth and bites his bottom lip, squinting to adjust to the dimming light.

“Thanks for sticking to the routine. You really didn’t need to but I was starting to feel guilty for not just doing _something._ ”

He nods but doesn’t turn her way or lean back at all.

“Can I, erm, ask how your day was?” She hesitates, but asks anyway.

“Sure.” He looks down at his feet and looks as if he’s genuinely waiting for her to ask the question officially.

“Okay… how was your day?”

“Fine.”

She’s about to let it slide, but then he’s the one asking the questions.

“Do you have a mom?”

“I do, funnily enough.”

“What about your dad?”

“I have both… although I haven’t spoken to them in maybe, six, seven years?”

“Oh yeah… I haven’t spoken to my dad since I was 12, and I’m now in my forties.”

She gulps then, hoping that he doesn’t mean what she thinks he means.

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

He finally looks back at her, snorting under his breath a little.

“He’s not dead.”

“Oh, okay, sorry, I just didn’t want to offe-.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. If he was, I wouldn’t care anyway.”

She gets what he’s saying and realises that she’s relating. She might not know the full story, but by the way he’s sitting and talking, it makes sense.

“Parents are weird.” is all she can think to say.

“Yeah…especially when all they want to know is,” he heightens his voice to an embarrassing squeak,” “’Oh Jeffrey, have you found someone yet? If you wait any longer you won’t be able to have kids.’ Or when they say things like, ‘I still don’t understand why you quit, you had _so_ much potential.’ Yeah well, I also lied, I’m 41 and single which basically tells everyone I suck at relationships, which I pretty much do because when the hell was my last one?”

She pouts at the floor and watches him sit back, shaking his head.

“I do not know why I just told you all of that.”

She sighs.

“Because sometimes you just need to get something off of your chest, and tell somebody who isn’t going to judge you?” She raises a shoulder and he wishes he could see it as simply as that.

“I’m sorry, this wasn’t on the sign-up sheet, was it? Dealing with all my crap.”

“No, seriously it’s fine. I mean, I’m going to presume you don’t do this with all of your clients,” They both laugh at that, “but it’s fine, seriously. I get it… I was actually going kind of insane today because I’ve been getting so used to seeing you on a Saturday morning.”

“Yeah well don’t get used to seeing me on a Saturday evening too.”

“I’ll have to try not to because otherwise, it’s like I want to spend all of my time with you, morning, day and night!” He turns to her then, catching her throw her hands up in the air and mull over the words that slipped out of her.

“Night, huh?” He tilts his head like he always does and rubs his lips together. There’s something in his eye, though, and his voice is slightly deeper and it’s not from the running or from anything else because she’s heard his post-work-out voice; it’s raspy and he sometimes coughs in-between his words.

She laughs at herself but he carries on looking her way, swallowing deeply.

“Because you know it’s night now, right?”

She’s looking back at him now, the laughter fading immediately as her eyes drop to his lips. Her heart throbs in her chest, all warm and tingly, and it would be so easy to just stretch out and do something she can’t deny she’s been telling herself not to do for weeks. Because she doesn’t do this; she doesn’t just leap onto someone because they’re attractive and because she spends a lot of time with them… but he kind of makes her want to just scrap all her own rules and _jump._

“I don’t have anywhere else to-.”

She cuts him off because all of a sudden her lips are on his. It feels like a blur because her mind is racing and all she can think is ‘Why, why, why?’ when from Jeff’s point of view, it’s probably the slowest ten seconds of his life. As soon as she pulls away, he wishes it had lasted even longer. Her lips are moving and he can tell she wants to apologise so before she can even make a single sound, he meets her back in the middle, his hand goes to her hair, and she moans into his mouth and she drops her own hand to his knee whilst the other one pulls at the tight fabric across his chest.

When she needs to breathe, she lets him kiss her jaw and pull her closer and she doesn’t think working out will ever fill her with the same amount of adrenaline as this moment ever will. She opens an eye when the realisation of where they are hits, and closes it immediately when she’s sure nobody else is around.

When he moves back to her mouth, she can’t help but think about the fact he’s just over-40 and she’s not even 25 and maybe Britta was right; maybe he just wants to take advantage of her because it’s easy, but then he pulls away and searches her eyes and she doesn’t want to think about it - she just wants to kiss him again.

The blurriness must transfer through her body because he’s soon drifting off into an unclear space, the rest of his day long behind him with his mind only thinking about _this_ and _now_ until he finally pulls away just to read her face.

They’re still pressed up against each other, and he can feel every intake and every slow exhale of her breath against his cheek as she parts her lips and tries to work out everything in her mind. They stare back at one another for a moment, until Jeff’s eyes start tracing her face - her jaw; her lips.

“That was…” Annie finds herself saying, not knowing how to finish her sentence. His eyes flick back up to hers and he nods subtly.

“Good. Good, right? We should… we should do that again. Soon… again.” He’s barely making sense but she agrees by closing the gap to make soon, sooner than soon, and to confirm that it would still feel as good as it did moments before.

It’s even better in one way, because they can both feel it and acknowledge it and it’s more than just _now,_ it’s _in the moment_ and everything feels scarily crystal clear. It doesn’t last like the first kiss, but it makes the evening last even longer as a whole.

“Do you want…?”

For the second time; she jumps.

* * *

 

He knows it’s something different when he finds himself hunched over at the side of the gym’s pool, uncaring of the fact his sneakers are beginning to get wet from the overspill of splashing water running over the drain and onto the tiles. Abed has been sat watching him for an unsettling amount of time without saying anything which Jeff presumes is because there’s going to be some sort of metaphorical, sitcom-trope based moral to it all when his uncomfortable gaze from his lifeguard’s post makes him cave and explain what’s on his mind.

Troy is on the opposite side of the pool, pouting and bobbing his head, shrugging and throwing up his hands in the air every now and then after pointing theatrically in Jeff’s direction. Jeff can’t see because he’s still staring at the rippling water in front of him, but he can hear Abed’s arms moving as he responds in some form of sign language.

Jeff grunts as he leans back on the palms of his hands, tucking his feet inwards so that a mother and her child can walk past without toppling over and drenching him completely.

“Okay fine Abed, you win. You haven’t asked any questions, so I guess I’m going to have to tell you everything, aren’t I? So there’s this woman I’m training-”

“Oh, he’s finally talking! Can you speak up? I can’t come over there until my lunch break. Use your megaphone.” Troy interrupts with cupped hands, his voice coming across tinny and small across the width of the pool.

“-and we, you know, we may have, had some… relations, sex, whatever you want to call it, but she did the whole Post-It note thing. You know, the sticky note thing?” Abed shakes his head and glances over at Troy to see how he responds.

“You had sex,” He tilts his head and grins when an elderly woman in a swimming cap passes below his feet, “with a woman… in a… tricky… moat? Oh my god, she… _she lives in a castle?”_ His eyes widen and his hand goes to his chest, so Jeff really has to grin and bear it over the fact he’s still there explaining.

“I take that as a no. She left a note, saying that we’d talk soon, and it’s been four days, and we still haven’t ‘talked soon’. Who leaves it and then doesn’t follow through? We’re going to have to talk soon, right? It’s Wednesday and we train on Saturdays, so unless ‘talk soon’ is her way of sayin-.”

“Jeff, why did you come to me about this?” Abed asks bluntly.

“I didn’t. I sat by the pool and you stared at me for twenty minutes.”

“I presumed you’d open up eventually.”

“Okay, all I’m getting is something about walking on the moon, and another thing about…” The elderly woman passes Troy again so he whispers as loudly as he can without shouting, “…foreplay? _Dude,_ was there butt-stuff?”

“What’s your point Abed?” Jeff continues, lifting a palm off the textured tiled floor beneath him to inspect the imprint left in his skin.

“You wanted to come to me because this is a new experience for you. Deep down, for an unspoken reason, you want to talk to her again but you need to justify why it should be you talking to her first. You don’t usually go on second dates or two-night stands. The last time you did, it was with Michelle and you swore to never date again because she ‘ripped your heart into a thousand tiny shreds’; that was an exact quote from a drunk voicemail you left me on the 11th of March 2010.”

“Way to memorise the fact my last relationship was six years ago, Abed.” Jeff rolls his eyes and digs his palms a little firmer against the tiles to see what more they can do.

“It helps, though, doesn’t it? Because maybe you’re ready for this. Maybe you’re scared by the fact a new person has come into your life and has shown you something different; something new, something exciting and something that makes you feel vulnerable.”

“I barely even know her.”

“You ‘hairy-toed’ her? Is this some new sex thing, because I don’t know man… that just sounds nasty.”

Abed shakes his head to answer Troy’s question before continuing once more.

“You barely knew Michelle. You barely know anyone you sleep with; isn’t that your deal?”

“Wow, this conversation is revealing a lot about how you see me Abed. Thank you, I appreciate it.”

“Aren’t you intimately involved with everyone you train with from the first day onwards? So your connection with them becomes stronger, faster, than anywhere else you might meet them. Maybe you just didn’t realise how close you were becoming until you physically became the closest you can ever be with someone.”

“Ughhh.” Jeff rubs at his temples before standing up to pace back and forth. Abed returns to tilting his head and all it does is make Jeff pace faster and start him questioning whether Abed even pays attention to what’s going on in the pool at all.

“What are you going to do?” Abed startles him so much that a small gasp escapes him before he stands up straight and holds himself up against the wall.

“I don’t know, Abed. I don’t know, okay? I don’t know!” His voice shrieks and his hands fumble around before he pushes his forehead against the wall as if using enough strength will push a brick out of the way and reveal the best answer.

“I guess I’ll just…” He sighs.

“Unless she changes her mind, I’ll see her on Saturday. So, I guess… I’ll see her on Saturday.”

“Okay, I have _really_ lost you. Is he saying that she does _mind_ reading now? This chick either sounds awesome or _terrible.”_

Jeff shakes his head as he pulls open the door to the pool exit and leaves them behind, doing what Jeff Winger does; nothing. He’ll see her on Saturday. They’ll talk soon.

When the door clicks shut, Abed nods satisfactorily before pulling out his megaphone to clearly communicate with Troy.

“This is good for him.”

* * *

 

His apartment had been nice, in the sense that it was tidy and clean and filled with what must have been expensive furniture and artwork on the walls. It wasn’t to Annie’s particular taste, mainly because the walls were a brownish shade of grey that gave no help in lighting up what was already a rather dimly lit space, but it was tasteful and themed and clearly enough effort had been put in for it to be appreciated.

That’s what she finds herself thinking as she drives back home from work on Thursday night. She also finds herself mulling over the reason for leaving the note because that’s all she’s been able to focus on whenever she hasn’t been preoccupied with filing reports away and making small talk and listening in on weekend plans with her colleagues at the lab.

She’d almost stayed in bed.  
She’d almost let herself drift back off into the cosy cocoon of his silk sheets and carry on allowing his hand to drift further and further up her thigh. _Almost_ is an interesting word, she’s come to find. It’s full of so much hope yet so much regret, no matter what the context.

She’d _hoped_ that she’d woken up to breakfast, but realised that was only a fantasy that comes to life in movies. She _regretted_ not being a little louder as she put her clothes back on and poured herself a glass of water in the bathroom, just to see if he’d wake. She’d _hoped_ he would have called her after she’d left the note on his fridge. She _regretted_ not just telling him they’ll talk soon instead.

She’s looked over his last text message in her phone over and over again that the words are almost unreadable now; they’re just letters and numbers and a grey bubble shape behind them.

She wants to let it go. She wants to do nothing and just wait until Saturday like a normal person because technically they’re still just trainer and trainee, but she has to remind herself that this isn’t something she normally does. She’s not the sort of person who _does_ let it go. She can scrutinise for weeks over things like how she accidentally dropped a folder on the floor in front of one of her bosses and still go over it when she thinks it’s finally erased from her memory, months later.

She turns the key in her car door and makes a silent prayer up to the skies that she’s not about to make a huge fool of herself. She’s at the gym and her palms are sweating for a different reason from usual.

She checks the hall where their sessions usually happen, but it’s empty and dark and there’s no sign of recently used equipment anywhere to be seen. She can’t go into the main gym without her gear on, so she takes a quick look through the small glass window in the door instead, before moving onto the small waiting area by the vending machines in case he’s waiting for another client.

Her last idea is to go down to the pool area, but as she opens up the door to the stairwell, two red shirted guys push through it and laugh their way past her, oblivious to her presence as they babble away deep in conversation. The backs of their shirts are labelled with bold white lettering spelling out ‘LIFEGUARD’ and she smiles when things click into place.

“Excuse me?” She calls out, waiting with raised eyebrows before they turn and smile at her blankly.

“I don’t suppose you know of Jeff Winger, do you? He’s a personal trainer? I’m trying to look for him but he doesn’t seem to be anywhere…” Her voice dies out a bit as the thought that he might not even work on Thursday evenings comes to mind.

“Jeff? Yeah, he’s like our weird older brother best-friend… and you did _not_ need to know that.” Troy grimaces at himself before pounding a fist into his other open hand.

“Oh… cool, I guess it’s good I caught you then. So, do you have any idea where I might find him?”

“Does he train you?” Abed asks, pointing a finger in her direction. She nods, still awaiting an answer.

Abed’s eyes drift down her body as he makes mental notes about her physical appearance in comparison to other people Jeff has not only trained, but slept with in the past. She’s fairly short which Jeff doesn’t usually tend to focus on, but she has long brown hair in soft curls, her eyes are wide and are easy to be drawn in by and she has the sort of nose that would probably fit perfectly with his facial symmetry.

“He’s usually with his most private personal client, Scrunch. He’s a tech billionaire.” Her eyes widen and she has to fight off her hand flying to her chest at Abed’s statement.

“Oh.”

“He should be done in about…” Abed circles a finger in the air as he looks to the clock on the wall, before dropping his hand as Troy taps him on the shoulder.

“Twenty minutes.” Abed smiles and shrugs as Troy helps him along; he’s never been the best with time.

“Okay, so I guess I should meet him in the…” Annie drops her chin and purses her lips, expecting them to fill in the end of her sentence.

“…parking lot? The foyer?” She looks around, “Here?”

“The locker room.” Abed points again and she has to pout in confusion.

“We’ll take you there.” He motions her forward and turns around, leaving Troy to roll his neck in surprise.

“Well okay then.”

She’s lead to a door down a corridor which is clearly labelled ‘Staff Only’, but Troy is very eager to point out how loosely that term is used.

“Yeah, there’s an old lady who does water yoga every other day… she doesn’t know that the changing rooms are down by the pool, so she uses the staff lounge to get dressed. Nobody wants to point it out because she’s kind of crazy.”

She has to laugh but her whole body is full of butterflies the more it comes clear that they’re going to leave her alone, right where Jeff will be heading. _It’s what you wanted._

“I’m Troy by the way; Troy Barnes.” Abed slaps Troy’s hand away when he goes in for a shake, so they all stand in an awkward silence before Abed mumbles and they let her know they’re going on their way.

“Good luck.” Abed adds on as he leaves, which is oddly poignant.

* * *

 

He’s humming under his breath as he heads towards his locker to get his towel and sweatshirt when he looks up to find Troy and Abed passing him. He flicks his eyebrows up in acknowledgement because he’s honestly exhausted from a day of work to stop and talk, and usually, that’s enough for them, but today Abed has a gleam in his eye and he knows he’s not getting away from them swiftly.

He slows to a stop and crosses his arms over before sighing.

“There’s someone waiting for you.” Abed throws a thumb over his shoulder as Troy’s eyes bulge in excitement.

“Ooh and she’s _hot._ Not too hot, but like, she could be in a _movie_ hot. Do you know her?” Abed has to turn his head so he’s facing Troy completely. He stares and blinks.

“I know a lot of hot women Troy; you’d have to give me more than that.”

“She’s got brown hair, blue eyes, big boo-,”

“You know her.”

“-oobs.”

Jeff shakes his head at both of them, looking to his wrist before remembering his watch isn’t there as usual because Scrunch has quite the routine.

“Okay well, I’ve got to run, well technically not because I’ve done enough of that today, but I need to go and as you guys said, meet this person who I apparently know. I’ll see you soon.” He pushes through the gap between them, their voices fading out as he rounds the corner.

“He knows her?” Abed nods.

“Remember yesterday when he came to us for advice?” Troy squints one eye before opening it fully again.

“Oooh, wait… _that_ was… the hairy toe girl?” Abed takes his turn to squint but eventually nods.

“Damn. Do all hot chicks have hairy toes? Maybe I should be looking closer.”

Jeff’s pulled out his phone to check the time and catch up on any notifications or headlines he’s missed during the day as he walks, but he knows the way so well that he pushes through doors without looking up once and probably would have missed her if it wasn’t for the fact she was standing right in the path for the final one.

He slowly slides his phone back down into his pocket as he meets her gaze, quickly scanning his brain for any memory of texting her in his sleep, but he draws a blank.

“Hey… what are you doing here?”

She steps forward, but not too close.

“I realised my note was a little ambiguous. Unless you’ve decided it would be unprofessional, which I completely understand, I suppose you’re still my trainer so we were going to talk soon anyway but then I realised leaving a note in the first place and not staying over almost suggests that I don’t _want_ to talk soon. So… I’m here. I couldn’t wait.”

He pouts and isn’t sure how to respond because nothing seems like the right thing to say. He doesn’t blame her for leaving, he’s done it enough times in his life and doesn’t want to count how many times he’s woken up with one empty side of his bed.

“So… am I still seeing you on Saturday?”

He shakes his head in confusion because the answer is surely obvious.

“Yeah of course… unless you don’t want to. I also completely understand.”

“No, no, I do! I do! I… I like training with you, I mean, I like you.”

His pout morphs into more of a smirk and his eyes brighten up to how she likes them.

“So do you want to… see me before Saturday?” He raises an eyebrow and the smirk is now a smile. “I mean, I could _really_ do with a shower and I was only going to order a takeaway but you could totally join me if you want… for the takeaway, although I guess, the shower too.” Somehow he’s moved slyly towards her so she has to look directly up to get a good look at him.

She whispers as he pulls her closer and nudges his nose against her own.

“I could do both.”

* * *

 

She does both for two nights straight and even stays over on Friday because Jeff realises it’s easier, seeing as her session is so early the next day anyway. He tugs at her hip as she sits up so that she’ll settle back down but she looks at the clock on the wall and isn’t having any of it.

“You’re in my _apartment._ ” He shakes his head and rubs a hand down his face as she slips her underwear back on whilst perched on the edge of the mattress.

“I have a set time slot for my session. I can’t go over it.”

“You can’t go over it at all if your trainer is still in bed.”

She glares at him then, but it doesn’t do anything because it only makes her look more attractive, somehow. He’s decided he likes her determined I’m-getting-my-own-way face because it’s full of strength and power and it’s fun to push back on. He grins and leans his cheek on his hand, trying to make it obvious that he’d rather sweat things out in bed than at the gym, but again – she’s not having it. She turns and sets her face sternly, her hands crossing over so she can explain herself in a calm and collected manner. He grins some more.

“I still want to train with you and take it seriously. I like working with you so I’d rather stop _this_ before it goes too far than lose you altogether.”

It’s his turn to get more serious now, so he bites his cheek and nods because he too would rather take working out seriously, than what they do outside of the gym. He likes her, and it’s fun, and the sex is good and maybe sometimes when he looks at her it’s more than just attraction, but there’s nothing serious going on; there're no expectations and he likes that.  

“I still want to train you too. Just give me ten minutes and then we can be on our way, getting sweaty and down to it like usual.”

She tries to glare at him again but there’s a smile underneath it all and she has to swat his chest in order to fight her laughter away. He catches her hand and brings it up to his lips so he can smother her fingers in kisses and draw her back in again.

She has enough restraint in her to resist more than a slow deep kiss and his hands tugging at her bra straps, so they’re at the gym within fifteen minutes and surprisingly it all feels normal.

She catches him checking her out every now and again, slowly peeling away her sports bra with his eyes, so she teases him by being slightly slower to stand back up right from stretches, and when he moves in closer in preparation to guide her arms with the weights she’s using, she steps back and brushes up against him.

It’s only when he leans against the ballet bar and drops his head towards the floor that she has to succumb all by herself. She’s midway through using the battle ropes when she huffs and drops them to the ground, skipping over to him to lift his chin up with her finger so she can kiss him and reignite the energy in her body.

She’s back at the ropes so quickly that he’s left with his mouth drooping open and his tongue on the edge of his lip. He would have been ready to turn her around and press her up against the mirror, so he does it on his own to conceal the disappointment on his face.

They dwindle about in the hallways afterwards, not sure what to do with themselves, so Jeff mindlessly walks her to his locker so he can occupy his hands with sorting out his things instead of pulling her close.

She bounces up and down on the toes of her sneakers as he finds his towel and gulps down the last dregs of his green juice that he whipped up before they left his place. It’s just as easy for her to peel away his clothes, especially when she knows there are only three articles that need removing, or technically two if they wanted to go for speed rather than intimacy and sensuality because she can feel everything through his shirt anyway.

She twirls her hair around her finger before snapping herself out of it and straightening up to finally say her farewell.

“I’ll see you soon then?”

“Do you want to get dinner sometime?”

They’re both in surprise when they talk simultaneously, but Jeff’s even more surprised because he’d asked a question which definitely sounded more serious out loud than in his head.

“D-d-dinner?” She stumbles through the word, not sure if she’d heard him correctly.

“Uh… yeah; dinner.”

She smiles and laughs shyly under her breath, her cheeks turning a rosy coloured pink. He can feel his own doing the same because it feels somewhat fulfilling to see a smile on her face.

The laughing continues later on that evening because they both realise neither one of them has anything better to do so they may as well just get on with it rather than wait for a set date to come around. To Annie, it feels like one of those montages where it’s so perfectly easy that every moment melts into the next and if you were to just add some music on top, it would look and feel like a happy daydream.

She doesn’t tell him that exactly, but she mentions something vaguely similar which reminds him of Abed, so he asks her if they met and her eyes widen as she realises who she’s talking about. Jeff eats more than she thought he would, so much so that his plate is completely wiped clean when they get up to leave the restaurant he’d picked out.

But then the laughter becomes nervous rather than giddy because they find themselves stood outside with their hands joined in the middle. The sky is pitch black but the restaurant is lit up behind them so Annie can’t really make out the expression on Jeff’s face. She can see that his lips are parted and that he’s not looking her way, though. He doesn’t do this, he thinks.

It’s been six years since his last relationship. He had to see her move on within an instance and everyone else since then has been held at arm’s length because it’s easier than risking the whole ‘a thousand tiny shreds’ experience.

He knew it was different when he was pounding his fist against the swimming pool wall, and he knows it’s different now because all he can feel is a sense of _want._ He _wants_ to know her.

He _needs_ to know her because otherwise, he’ll never know what’s right in front of him.

“I don’t do this… I don’t do this… I mean, I _really_ don’t do this.” He shakes his head whilst still looking away.

And neither does she.  
He’s nothing like her perfect guy, and in every relationship, even during those regrettable one-night stand moments, she’s always thought about whether he’s the one. Every relationship will either fail or go onto become something lasting; something that lasts for a lifetime. She doesn’t know if she wants a lifetime with him yet but under her skin, there’s an itch that needs to be scratched that isn’t all about pleasure.

It feels like she’s holding a scratch card in her hands, and if she had a dime out and etched away at the silvery grey ink, she’d be able to find out whether it was worth pocketing or throwing away like any other piece of paper.

“We don’t have to think about it.”

“We don’t have to think about it.” He repeats in agreement.

“We’ll just… see.”

His eyes are on hers now and he can feel things shifting, so he looks away again and shakes his head in thought.

“You know; you don’t have to have a set session on a Saturday by the way. You can just… I don’t know, do it whenever. Just ask me.”

She smiles with her lips turned in which he’s noted to be her appreciative and satisfied little version of a grin.

“Also if we’re sleeping together, might be a bit weird if you pay me. I do actually work for the gym, so I could technically get fired. I know that much as a former lawyer.”

She tilts her head before pulling one of her hands away and smoothing it up his shirt.

“And we wouldn’t want that because who’s going to buy me dinner every night?”

Now that she’s closer she can see how his eyes squint up humorously as he snorts.

“Definitely not me, even if I don’t get fired. I’m making that very clear from here on out.”

“Okay… so, Jeff Winger doesn’t do romance.”

He presses his free hand to her back so he can pull her against him.

“Oh, I never said I don’t do romance.”

“So I can expect flowers?”

“It might be a little too soon for that.”

“Breakfast in bed?”

“Definitely not on the silk sheets. And hey, wait a minute, what about you? I don’t even know where you live.”

She takes his hand again and the excitement of knowing where it might lead sends chills down his back so his skin is left feeling cool whilst his body feels warm and heated.

“Well then, I guess you’re about to find out.”

He likes to think her next promotion at work is all due to his determination and dedication to making her a stronger candidate for an even better position in the future, but he’s figured out that she can get anything she wants if she puts her mind to it.

She gets a lot from him, though he likes to think what he gets in return is a _whole_ lot better.


End file.
